Equities suffered severe losses at midday, with banks taking a battering. A numbers of woes prompted investors to cash in on previous’ gains. Interest rate decisions by the ECB and the Fed until the end of the week, and the damages caused by last week’s extreme floods are the reasons offered for the decline. 

At 1258 local time, the general share index shed 1.9% to 1223 points. Volumes were light.

Banks posted aggregate losses of 2.50%, with Piraeus giving up 3.3%, Eurobank and NBG were down 2.4% each.